Nick Vittore

The entrance to Home at Last and the other retailers by Peterson Commons is littered with construction cones and signs.

For the past several months, construction has backed up traffic on both Route 21 and Route 137 respectively, as commuters have had to work around their schedules, and businesses have had to change tactics.

Back in 2012, the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) launched a project to widen Milwaukee Avenue (Route 21) to make it easier to cross the road. According to the Daily Herald, the new pavement on Milwaukee Avenue will be widened 2.2 miles north and south of Peterson. While this will one day benefit navigation on one of America’s most traveled roads, it has been a nuisance for today’s commuters to drive on and for business owners to deal with.

“The construction led to a slight loss in sales,” said Paul LaRoche, the owner of Ace Hardware in Libertyville, located just yards shy of the undesired intersection of Milwaukee Avenue and Peterson Road. “This is due in part to unavailability for consumers to come to the store as a result of traffic. Time is precious in terms of traffic, so naturally the consumer doesn’t always have time to come to the store.”

This can explain why he also thinks that shopping is at its peak at times like night-time, as people try to avoid rush hour. Ace has been one of several businesses that has been affected by the roadwork occurring in Libertyville. From losing customers to changing the hours of operation, the process has been a challenge for many.

Cafe Pyrenees, a French bistro restaurant in Adler Square, was arguably the business that was hit the hardest as a result of the construction. Management decided to take such drastic measures as to cancel lunch through November as a result of the construction.

Brenda Spried, the owner of the Home at Last Antiques adjacent to Peterson Road, is hoping to expand their extent of advertising as a way to attract more customers despite business slowing up. “We’ve been running monthly promotions and we’ve been doing a lot of mailers, which I don’t usually do,” she said. “We’re just trying to remind people we’re still here and open for business.”

From its beginnings to its days as one of America’s famous roads, it’s fair to say that a change seemed appropriate for such a busy road. However, critics say that the timing should have been better.

“The construction process lasted 4-5 months longer than it should have, even though everyone did the best they could,” remarked LaRoche. “The nice thing is that it will make the roads more wide and safer.”

Spried was also less than impressed with the efficiency of the construction team, claiming that the process has been dragged on. “It is overdue,” agreed Spried. “This has been going on for almost three years… last I heard they were about 85% complete.”

Spried recalls the disarray of the process from the start. “At the very beginning, it was all the utility companies at the intersection (i.e AT&T, ComEd) so one company would come in and pick something up and tear up the road, fix it, make it look pretty, and then another utility company would come in and tear up the same spot and do it all over again. That took almost a year. So that was the beginning of the construction process.”

As the construction has affected the number of customers who visit stores, it has also impacted employees’ work time. LaRoche and Spried revealed that employee hours and pay have been cut as a result of the work on Peterson Road. This shouldn’t come as a surprise: even back in February, stores such as Lee Donuts reported revenue losses of up to 50% over the course of 12 months, and Ace saw a 30% drop.

Through employees, hours of operation, or any other business function, virtually all businesses in construction zones have had to make changes of some sort or another, but all of them have a common goal: to continue with successful sales. “We’re going to continue to strive in our sales,” said LaRoche. “We’ve had very loyal customers and we thank them. Our goal after the construction will be to come back bigger and better.”

The official completion date was supposed to have occurred this fall, however IDOT spokesman Mike Claffey says the new completion date for the construction project of Milwaukee and Peterson Road is January 10, 2014, the Chicago Tribune reports. It’s fair to say that the people behind the register, behind the wheel, and in the construction zones will be looking forward to the end of the process.